1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for manufacturing a slide fastener stringer including a woven stringer tape and a coiled fastener element woven into the stringer tape along a longitudinal edge thereof.
2. Prior Art
Known apparatus for producing a slide fastener stringer of the type described above generally comprise a shuttleless loom such as a needle loom for weaving a stringer tape and a rotor assembly operatively associated with the loom for supplying a monofilament and a core thread, the rotor assembly including a mandrel for extending along a longitudinal edge of the tape being formed and adjacent to the fell of the tape. The rotor assembly winds or coils the monofilament around the mandrel and the core thread fed therealong, thereby forming the coiled fastener element reinforced with the core thread as they are woven into the tape by being interlaced with weft threads inserted by filling carriers of the loom.
The rotor assembly comprises a housing, a wheel or rotor rotatable in the housing and having an axial off-center hole through which the monofilament passes, and a shaft around which the wheel is rotatable, the mandrel being fixed to the shaft. Since during operation of the apparatus the wheel revolves so as to turn the monofilament in an orbital motion around the shaft, the shaft floats in the wheel and hence cannot be non-rotatably maintained. Therefore, the shaft is liable to be turned about its own axis due primarily to frictional engagement with the wheel and to vibrations set up in the apparatus while it is being operated. Such rotational movement of the shaft causes the eccentrically disposed mandrel to shift sideways, in which instance the monofilament being coiled can be shaped irregularly and the weft threads being inserted tend to get loosened at the tape edge.